K&B BNS Goes Digital with ValiCash™

Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions (K&B BNS) has launched an app that is described as bridging the gap between the physical and the digital. Known as ValiCash™, the app not only helps identify but actually authenticates high security documents as well by scanning the document and giving either a ‘Pass’ or a ‘Fail’ response almost instantaneously.

Some years ago, K&B BNS launched its ‘Sound of Intaglio’ authentication technology that used image processing to validate banknotes based on interrogating intaglio print. This technology was originally used for forensic intelligence and examinations but was also made available for banknote authentication at point of sale (PoS). K&B BNS continued to work on the technology and has now taken it further by enabling its use in an app on mobile devices.

This development is well-timed as recirculation at the point of sale increases and as e-commerce leads to more cash-on-deliver kerbside payments. Even without that, it offers consumers and merchants an accessible and free tool to authenticate banknotes.

Phase 1: Version 1

As launched, the app can be downloaded free of charge from the Apple AppStore and works on iOS systems 14 and all releases after 2015. This initial launch version recognises only euro banknotes.

The app solution captures the document image and processes it. It looks at the high security print methodology used and authenticates based on that – intaglio, some types of holograms and OVI/OVMI. The verification system is predominantly carrying out, without AI and Machine Learning, a structural analysis of the intaglio and more generally an analysis of specific optical characteristics of high security printing processes.

This release of the app only recognises one side of the banknote, but does recognise both euro series one and two. If you scan the serial number, non-intaglio side of any euro banknote, the app requests that you turn it over and scan the other side. The app recognises the denomination being scanned.

If the input image is not good enough, the app displays a ‘Try again’ message and guides the user on how to improve the capturing process (eg. flatten the note or keep the phone steady). If the app displays ‘Fail’, the app reverts to a ‘manual’ mode, putting up European Central Bank (ECB) security feature information to allow people to make their own decisions.

The technology is designed to work for notes that are consistent with the ECB soiled note standards. If crumpled notes are presented, the app guides users to uncrumple them. The terms and conditions that people sign up to when they download the app ensures the app is regarded as a guide rather than a definitive assessment of authenticity.

Intaglio is a traditional and highly secured security feature with no counterfeiting in the cash cycle. Therefore, it is the perfect feature for machine-readable without modifying or hiding special features in the design or using special inks.

Privacy

Some people may be concerned that this solution might reduce the anonymity of banknotes. K&B BNS is very clear that anonymity is maintained. Although the downloading of the app is known, the usage data is not linked to the user or to the note. The data is not traceable.

Future developments: Phase 2: Version 2

Work started on bringing this app to the market about a year ago. Phase 1 is what has just launched, and K&B BNS is working on enabling it for additional devices and more currencies. A version suitable for Android models will follow.

K&B BNS do not see an issue with maintaining the app as software upgrades and phone model releases since self-adapting algorithms can make this a relatively straightforward task.

Other products?

Since the solution does not rely on specific inks, hidden features or the design of the banknote, it can authenticate any high security printed document. It can be adapted for tax stamps, birth certificates etc., so long as they are security printed and ideally contained intaglio print.

This first phase is, effectively, a live trial aimed at Eurosystem Apple phone users. K&B BNS will learn and develop the product, no doubt keenly observed by the ECB and others. If the data can be gathered, it will be interesting to see who is downloading the app, consumers, merchants or businesses, and where. Also, just how many times it is used.

An obvious use for the app is where shops are recirculating notes they have received and re-issuing them. As cashback becomes more common directly from shop tills, this is likely to increase. ECB rules currently don’t extend to handheld devices and require authentication devices to have automatic feeders. No doubt the ECB will adapt its rules so that ‘mobile cash’ works better in due course and will consider this solution when it does so.

Last word

This sort of solution has been considered before. The first to market was EuroBiljet from the Dutch National Bank, which authenticated euro note, but this is no longer available to download. And Jura has an app-based solution which interrogates a specific printed feature, and which is used in Hungary’s 10,000 and 20,000 forint notes.

There are, of course, many apps used to provide public education about notes, and others to help the visually-impaired distinguish between denominations, but this is a bold innovation that potentially does connect the digital and the physical in a new – highly secure - way.